As with most successful startups, the idea for Drink Dry, a marketplace for premium non-alcoholic drinks in the UAE, came out of a personal need.
Its founder Erika Doyle was trying to start a family with her husband, back in 2015, but it “just wasn’t happening for us for a while,” she explained and so, upon the advice of her physician friend, she decided to cut off alcohol. “I thought I’d give it a go as I have nothing to lose and that’s when my journey as a consumer of non-alcoholic drinks started,” she said.
At that time, the non-alcoholic beverages market was growing in popularity across Europe and Doyle was spoilt for choice between premium and great tasting non-alcoholic wines, beers and spirits.
The growth of the non-alcoholic drinks category continues and, from 2017 to 2019, UK volume sales of non-alcoholic spirits grew by 169.7 percent, according to IWSR data. Globally, the low-to-no-alcohol market is expected to grow by 34 percent in volume by 2024.
However, when Doyle moved to Dubai in 2019 for her husband’s business, she found out, to her dismay, that the non-alcoholic drinks market in the region was underdeveloped. She recounted how she could not find any brand of quality non-alcoholic drinks made for adults across the city’s retailers and that even the mocktails served in the hospitality industry were too sugary and not “exciting or layered in taste.” This is when the idea for Drink Dry began to emerge with Doyle launching the online marketplace in December 2020.
In a wide reaching interview with Arabian Business, Doyle talks about the growing demand for non-alcoholic drinks, her future plans and the advice she would give young entrepreneurs.
How did the idea for Drink Dry come about?
After the move to Dubai, it started to frustrate me that I couldn’t find the non-alcoholic beverage brands I was used to in Europe in stores here and no really exciting mocktails in the hospitality industry.
So I think I complained and I moaned, and I complained and moaned a little bit more, and then eventually I decided I’m going to do something about it.
That was in early 2020 at the onset of the pandemic. It was a really good time to assess whether it’s the right thing to do and if the demand is there especially since people became even more health-conscious a few weeks into quarantine and realised the importance of taking care of their bodies.
So I did my homework, and I approached mainly female entrepreneurs telling them I have this idea that I want somebody to help me launch. You’d be amazed at the results: We females are so incredibly united and supportive of each other.
So I surrounded myself with the best possible people who saw my enthusiasm and helped me get off the ground for no reason other than to help me. We launched the e-commerce platform in December 2020 and the rest just followed – the last 10 months have been incredible.
What do you think is the reason behind the surge in demand for non-alcoholic drinks?
I think it’s mainly health. Sugar intake in alcoholic beverages is huge and we all know that drinking copious amounts of alcohol damages our livers and kidneys.
So I think, just from a physical point of view, people became more aware of and in tune of what is good for them and started to look for alternatives. And when there’s demand, inevitably, supply will follow.
Another reason, particularly more so in the three years or so, is mental health. We are talking a lot more openly about the importance of keeping our mental health in check and, again, alcohol doesn’t help if you are over indulging.
However, it’s not about stopping completely. A lot of our consumers are simply Moderators: people who do enjoy wine on weekends but, during the week, they’re busy working parents who exercise, meditate or do yoga, and alcohol just isn’t a part of that anymore.
What has been the market demand for it?
The category itself has got a bad reputation from years of having watered-down malt drink calling themselves non-alcoholic beer, or grape juice in champagne bottle. We had to completely change people’s perception and introduce them to a whole new range of products and a new category and get them to repeat purchases.
To do so, I must have tried 200 different brands worldwide; I contacted every supplier from small to big, from established companies to people who are even brewing it in their own kitchen.
And then my girlfriends and I selected the crème de la crème of what we thought was the portfolio that I’m really proud and happy to put forward.
It’s my responsibility to get the consumer to buy for the first time but then the product itself has to do the job and be so good that the consumer buys it again.
When we launched in December we only had five products and within 10 days or less of launching the website, we got approached by one of the biggest retailers here in the UAE, saying they want to take the full range in all their stores.
Within the next two weeks of launching, we were running out of stock because we just had Christmas trading for a couple of weeks and then we went into dry January which also created demand.
Presently, we have almost 40 products in our range between wines, aperitifs, spirits, beers, mixers and tonics… things that offers the consumer the full experience of celebrating and enjoying a drink without it being alcoholic.
Where did the initial funds come from?
We have a private investor behind us who is very passionate about the category. We are in an incredibly fortunate position as a start-up where we have somebody behind us who believes in what we’re trying to do, encourages us and pushes us to grow faster.
We’ve grown a lot in such a short period of time and it all comes down to financing. We all know the saying “turnover is vanity, profit is reality, cash flow is sanity”. If you don’t have the cash to grow, you might have all these opportunities coming your way but you cannot pursue them.
What are your expansion plans?
We are very confident where the business is going in the UAE. When we started our market was 95 percent Dubai but now the city makes up 45 percent of our customers with the remaining across the other emirates.
It’s moving in the right direction: the customer base is growing and we are already present in retail and the hospitality industry here.
Hopefully we are opening up in Kuwait this year and plan to be in Saudi Arabia by quarter one of next year. We are just reacting to the demand, instead of creating it, and facilitating it.
What advice would you give young entrepreneurs who want to start their own business?
I want people to be inspired by starting a business and see that anybody can do it. It doesn’t have to be a serial entrepreneur or somebody who’s got a business background or anything like that – if you have an idea, you just have to give it a go and surround yourself with the right people.
Whenever I read business interviews with people who started a business in the last 12 months, and they’re portraying themselves as such seasoned business owners, it makes me chuckle a bit because I think let’s be honest about what we try to do, and inspire others, rather than put people off into doing what they want to do.
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